


The First Six

by some1_around



Series: Wrap Your Arms Around Me [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bad Parenting, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/M, Falling In Love, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, good parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 02:12:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6451363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/some1_around/pseuds/some1_around
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each of them come from different places. They had different experiences. The were treated differently. But somehow, they are all lucky enough to wind up in one place, together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crossing Arrows and Crossing Destinies

Things would’ve been different, Clint thinks, if he hadn't been born with all seven soulmarks. Monumentally different. Better, probably, at least for the first few decades.

He doesn’t think he’d change it, though.

His father was a traditionalist for the most part, but not to horrifying or dangerous degrees. His mother believed in true love. Barney was too young to understand.

They hid the marks from the very beginning. Under clothes and makeup and distraction. All but two – the arrows on his calf, and the little spider on his neck.

It was normal for Clint. He didn’t question it when his parents insisted he never let the others ones be seen. But he didn’t _like_ it. It made him feel itchy.

Sometimes his father would give him disgruntled looks when he thought Clint wasn’t looking, and his mother was absolutely livid whenever he forgot to put on the extra sweater, but things were pretty good, as far as Clint was concerned.

Things changed when Clint turned five. Things changed when his mother died.

Clint remembers her funeral, standing next to Barney and squeezing his older brother’s hand as tightly as he could, trying to fight off tears because his father had told them they weren’t allowed to cry.

After that day, Clint’s father, Francis Barton, slowly but surely lost himself into his bottle. Clint doesn’t know why, but as weeks turned into months and their income dwindled down with Francis’ refusal to work, and somehow it turned on him.

“She was going out to get your bloody makeup!” Francis roars at Clint, the five-year-old cowering in the corner of their front room, trying not to cut himself on the broken bear bottles scattered around. “You get six and I lose the only one I had?” Francis yells a month later, and this time, he throws the bottle at Clint. “You needy little faggot,” it morphs into, a few weeks later, “little bitch needs six fucking pricks to take care of you, huh?”

Barney and Clint are taken from his custody two years after their mother dies. Barney won’t look at Clint anymore and he certainly won’t look at the scars littering his back and arms that came from broken glass. They’re put in foster care, and Clint’s young and foolish heart hopes that maybe things will be better, somehow. They’ll find a place where he’s accepted and then things will be good again.

It doesn’t happen.

By the time Clint is ten, he has solidly gained the resentment of his brother – and he never loses it.

“My fucking job to take care of your weepy ass,” Barney snarls, storming around their bedroom and throwing all of their possessions into the duffel bag they’ve taken with them everywhere they’ve gone. “Your fucking fault I can't stay anywhere. God, everything’s your fault isn't it? You weren’t here Mom would still be alive – dad never would’ve done those things. It’s your fault.”

Clint tries to make himself small. They’ve been kicked out of this home – and it was a nice one, too – because money kept disappearing. Barney was stealing it to pay for the makeup that still hid Clint’s marks from the world.

Clint gets used to it after a while. He knows it’s his fault. Knows the tragedy of the Barton family started when he was born. It’s something he can deal with, because he knows, one day, that he’ll have six people to love him unconditionally. Maybe it’s his punishment to suffer early in life to equal out the success he will have later.

Three years pass and Barney decides to run away. He takes Clint with him out of family obligation but nothing else – he makes that very clear. Clint, now ten years old, has had enough of the foster care system and, so long as Barney isn't leaving him behind, he’ll be happy to follow him anywhere.

They wind up at a circus, and at first, it’s day in and day out hard labor, carrying supplies back and forth and setting up the tents before the sun has risen. The people there are scary, and cruel. A boy with a sword soon befriends Barney, and Clint is left in the dust.

He finds his first bow by accident.

He’s eleven, and he’s skinny but muscled – the result of hard labor mixed with little food. Their circus has crossed paths with another group of performers, and Clint and the other laborers are allowed to watch the performance that night – a rare treat – from a hidden vantage point in the rafters.

Clint can't take his eyes of one particular man – his mustache is long and elegantly up kept, and when he enters the circus floor, he carries with him a long bow taller than himself. With it, he shoots an apple off the head of a lovely woman wearing very little clothing. He shoots arrow after arrow, and in his mind, Clint is finally beginning to have an inclining of what his mark might mean.

After the show, Clint finds the man’s tent as steals a bow the size of his forearm and five small arrows. He never sees the man again.

When he is twelve, the ringmaster sees Clint shooting birds from the sky. Within two weeks, Clint is part of the act, no longer a laborer but now the famous One-Shot Shooter. Barney glowers and leaves the main tent when the circus master announces Clint is to be part of the show.

Barney is seventeen when he leaves Clint, only thirteen. His only farewell is to snarl harshly that it seems Clint can take care of himself now. Clint never sees his older brother again.

Clint gets famous within and beyond the extent of circus performers – the child who has never missed a mark. Clint has no friends within the circus, but he also has no enemies. Nobody dares cross him, not when he carries a lethal weapon with him at all hours.

He is sixteen when the ringmaster is arrested for child labor and mistreatment and the entire circus is taken into custody. Clint isn't taken with the rest of them, though. He is taken to an underground base made of concrete and steel by a man with sharp grey eyes and a spotless black suit.

_“Do you want to do more with your life?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Welcome to SHIELD.”_

That’s not exactly how it goes, but that’s how Clint remembers it.

Two years later Clint graduates from the SHIELD Agent Training Program, and he becomes Agent Barton of the Specials Ops. Team. He’s happy. He’s _happy_. He has friends here, people who give a fuck about him, and he’s _doing_ something to make the world better. He takes pride in his work and that’s something he’s never done before.

 _If all that was leading me here_ , he thinks, _then I'm grateful it happened_.

He still doesn’t know any of his soulmates, but Clint doesn’t need love to be happy.

He meets her when he’s twenty-three and Clint wonders how he ever lived before he did.

Coulson gives him the mission. He calls Clint to his office and hands him a picture. She’s beautiful, younger than him and lovelier than anything Clint has ever seen. _“She’s a murderer_ ,” Coulson tells him. “ _Brainwashed and trained agent of the Red Room. Your job is to take her out.”_

Clint agrees. After all, beauty does not equal goodness.

He arrives in the Russia three days later just in time for the gala event he will meet Natasha Romanov at. The party is in a theater hall, large and beautiful and golden, but in Clint’s opinion, it is pitiful to her beauty.

She knows he’s SHIELD before he enters the building. Clint knows she does, and she knows he knows. But she doesn’t run.

Clint does not end up completing his mission and assassinating the twenty-year-old murderess. Instead, he finds the first of six. And then he offers her a job.

Coulson is livid.

(Clint doesn’t really care. He’s too in love already to even make fun of the way Coulson’s face turns beat red when Clint steps off the SHIELD jet, a red-headed Russian at his side. Clint’s too busy praying that she will never leave that spot.)


	2. When The Spider Left the Web

The Red Room took everything, but they did not take soulmarks. They made it very clear to Natasha that she was an abomination for having so many, but they did not take the time to burn them off like one would’ve expected them to do.

There’s a reason of course, and it isn't the kindness of their hearts or that the organization leader believes in true love.

When she’s twenty they hand her a gun. It’s unnecessary – Natasha already had three guns stashed on her person along with six knives and extra ammo – but she takes it anyway and promptly hides it on her person. She has learned by now to accept without question.

_“We’ve found your first soulmate_ ,” the handler says, and Natasha hides the jolt of surprise she feels at the declaration. _“Kill him_.”

Natasha nods. It is not her job to question.

(She ignored the way both her heart and calf ache at the words, but she doesn’t question why. She doesn’t have to. She doesn’t ask which soulmate this one is.)

They send her to the gala to intercept Agent Barton of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. She arrives in a stunning black and red gown studded with glittering stones and draws the eye of everyone at the charity event. It’s being held to raise money for orphans. Coincidental, Natasha thinks, as she knows both her and Agent Barton had been without parents for a time. She does not dwell on it.

Agent Barton knows who she is the moment he enters the building. They have both been sent here to kill the other. Now it’s just a matter of who wins.

Her best shot is disembarking from the party, finding a secluded area and ridding herself of the slightly inhibiting dress. In public, Barton has an advantage over her – his abilities of long distance and hers are close-up. He’s with the government – even if it’s a foreign one, it will hold up in court much better than The Red Room – which doesn’t even technically exist. Natasha Romanov is not a documented citizen. It would be hard to charge Barton with murder.

From what Intel she has gathered, Agent Barton is not aware that they are soulmates. But she knows he has seven marks, just as she does. She knows the mark that defines him is a set of crossed arrows on his calf. Perfect, for this line of work. Almost as perfect as the small spider that represents her.

She should leave, amidst an air of goodbyes with people who are only pretending to know who she is because she looks rich and beautiful, and that is what these people desire. She should hail a cab and take it to the city center, disappear into the throngs of people, and make her way to the ratty apartment building that she has set up base in. Barton would follow her every step of the way, would never lose her trail. And once he got there, she could kill him.

She doesn’t run.

Who knows why, but forever reason she doesn’t. She gives herself half an hour before she will inevitably be shot by the man who doesn’t know that she shares his marks. When the half-hour is up, and she’s lacking bullet holes, she finally turns and makes eye contact with him.

He’s prettier than his pictures, Natasha thinks idly, making her way to the bar and ordering herself an apple martini. Strong, and clever, and pretty. Not the worst, as far as soulmates are concerned.

“You’re not running,” he says, leaning on the bar next to her, not looking at her but speaking to her.

“And you’re not shooting me,” she responds smoothly, smiling slyly at the bartender when he brings her the drink she ordered.

“Whiskey on the rocks,” Barton says to the man, before turning around, elbows on the bar top, eyes surveying the crowd around them. “Why aren’t you running?” he asks casually, offering a half-wave and a smirk when he catches the eye of an older woman on the other side of the room.

“Why aren’t you shooting?” Natasha fires back, slipping onto the polished wood stool and raising one eyebrow at Barton, sipping innocently at her drink.

Barton finally looks at her – a quick sidelong glance that hardly lasts a second, but he does look. After a moment he responds, “Because you’re not running.”

“And I am not running because you are not shooting, so I suppose this could become very repetitive very soon,” Natasha continues, setting her glass down and turning her full attention to the archer. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”

“By all means,” Barton agrees, putting his glass on the counter.

“You are here because SHIELD sent you to Russia to kill me, the black Widow, and I was sent here by the Red Room to kill you,” she says, and he nods in agreement. “Based on skills and abilities, my best chance at completing my mission would be to escape to somewhere more secluded and fight you there. Your best chance would have been twenty minutes ago while I was chatting to that man and you were stood by the fountain. You did not kill me then.”

“And you haven't run away yet,” Barton fired back.

“And so we are at an impasse,” Natasha agreed. “You don’t want to kill me, and I don’t want to kill you.”

Barton snorted and turned his head to pick up his glass, and Natasha caught sight of a small black smudge on his hairline. Someone had clearly attempted to cover it with makeup, but perhaps SHIELD is lacking in that area of expertise.

She ignores it. “The difference between me and you is that if you return to your overseers having failed to kill me, you will either be sent out again or reassigned to a new mission. I, on the other hand, will be punished.”

Barton looks up sharply, grey-blue eyes cold and sharp as steel. “Oh?” he asks, calm on the surface but Natasha senses the tension underneath. “And what do you propose?”

“Take me with you,” Natasha says before she can think better. She’s almost surprised with herself, but she’s careful not to let Barton see.

“Why should I trust you?” Barton snaps, voice gruff to hide his confusion.

Natasha’s eyes meet his and they are silent for a moment. Then carefully – so carefully, Natasha raises her hands and sweeps her long red hair over her shoulder and turns slightly.

She hears Clint’s breath catch slightly and knows he’s seen the mark, but her hand moves down to her chest and traces a circle, before to her shoulder and tappings, then to her side, then her hip, a slight trace of her thigh, and finally, her calf.

Clint stares at her, eyes wide. She has just effortlessly unveiled his most guarded secret.

She meets his eyes again. It was a gamble. All or nothing now and Natasha knows there is a short-range pistol under his jacket coat.

Though she knew there was a chance her bet would work, she did not expect the outcome she receives.

Clint beams at her, quick and suddenly, and says, as though this is nothing more than a coffee shop transaction, “Do you want a job?”

Natasha blinks. She doesn’t smile back but Clint’s grin widens when she says, “I have of recent found myself in desire of one.”

“I suppose it’s just your lucky day then,” Clint purrs.

He grabs her hand or she grabs his, and they’re running from the hall before the first set of Red Room troops bust down the door. His pistol is whipped out and Natasha pulls her knives from her stockings, and with the way Clint laughs as he guns down his opponents, Natasha thinks he is likely he is a little more than unstable.

Luckily for him, she isn't either.


	3. Not Easy Being Green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is Bruce's chapter, and a lot of it takes place during the 2008 Incredible Hulk film. The timeline is pretty crazy, and there's a lot happening very quickly, and a lot that's glossed over. If you're not completely familiar with the plot line or your confused by something, just looking at the wikipedia page for the movie and reading the plot summary should clear anything up.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the chapter!

Bruce’s earliest memories mainly consist of his mother singing soft songs to him while she gently wrapped cotton bandages around his side and later his chest. At the time, Bruce didn’t know why she was doing it – he was more interested in learning the words to the simple folk songs – but looking back on it, he realizes they must have done it quite often, by the sheer number of memories he has of her doing it.

He figures it out when he’s three or so – she never covers up the mark on hip or shoulder. He knows what soulmarks are, and Bruce guesses that these are the marks she approves of him having.

They never speak of it.

They don’t speak of it when he’s seven a spider appears on Bruce’s neck and his mother starts buying special makeup to hide it, and they still don’t talk about it when the crossed arrows show up on his calf a week later and the bandages start going there too.

Bruce doesn’t think his mom minds them, not really, but he knows that it’s crucially important his dad never finds out. Bruce knows what his father does to anomalies. Knows his father’s favorite past time is taking things apart to figure out how they work. Knows he wouldn’t be an exception.

The love that fills the Banner house is in no way contributed by his father, but it is there. Between him and his mother, and Bruce thinks that’s a lot more than a great many people have. He’s grateful for what he has.

When he’s fifteen and his mother dies of cancer, Bruce has learned enough about the world that he’s still grateful. He and his father never speak, but Bruce has never been hit and he has never wanted for food. He is grateful for what he has and what he doesn’t have, he prays the now six people he shares marks with will one day give him.

It is now Bruce’s job to hide the marks.

Bruce graduates from high school when he’s seventeen and goes to Cornell University partially on a scholarship and partially paid for by his absent but proud father.

Bruce feels he would’ve liked college more then he did if he didn’t spend the six years constantly dreading what would become of him when he graduated. He was expected to use his genius for the advancement of the American Military, as his father had spent years doing. In fact, it seems everyone he talks to expects Bruce to _be_ his father.

Bruce smiles politely and doesn’t tell anyone that his biggest fear is becoming Brian Banner.

Bruce wants to _help_ people. So when he graduates he makes the first big decision of his life that isn't done in part to please his father. He joins the Peace Corps and Bruce leaves for Nicaragua equal parts pleased and terrified.

He spends three years using his doctorate to help the children and elderly there who have no money to pay for local help, even though technically he isn't that type of doctor.

Bruce is twenty-six when he gets the letter that changes his life.

He flies back to America the next morning and fills in the now vacant position his father occupied for nearly forty years until a sudden heart attack killed him without warning. He starts his job working at Culver University on the Super-Soldier Project as head of his division, and begins his experiments regarding gamma radiation.

For the first year, he’s miserable. He does his work and he does it well, but something in him longs to return to the Peace Corps. He knows he’s helping people here, but back in Nicaragua, he got to see the way he improved peoples’ lives. He misses that.

He meets Betty and things get better. Bruce even begins to wonder if perhaps she has a little spider hidden under her thick brown hair, until one day she shifts and her sweater rides up, and he sees the little red apple sitting on her collarbone.

Things are still better than they were before, but when he turns twenty-eight, Bruce begins to fear that perhaps he left his soulmates behind in Nicaragua. Maybe it was supposed to be his job to pull them back from the brink of death from some awful illness. Maybe his return to the states has doomed them.

Later, Bruce will rationalize that it’s his desperation to find his soulmates and the looming fear that before he does someone else will discover the freak of nature his marks make him that drive Bruce to climb into that horrid machine.

(Later, Bruce will know that it was that terrible decision that led him to the six most important people in his life.)

He’s been working his father’s job for four years when the government decides that his department’s efforts to recreate the super-soldier serum will never pay off, and they cut funding. He’s thirty-years-old when he makes the crazy – literally _psychotic_ – decision to test his most recently developed theory of using gamma radiation to spike an affect of super-solider abilities in human DNA on himself.

That day the Hulk is born and Bruce Banner tears apart a military base and nearly kills his almost-not-really-girlfriend-but-definitely-best-friend.

Bruce runs. He runs, country to country, he runs. Partially because he needs to put distance between himself and everyone he could hurt. Partially because now, he can.

He goes to Costa Rica and then down to Peru, and then to Brazil and then to Columbia. He treks back up to Guatemala and catches a boat to Trinidad and sails around the Caribbean, and then he finally returns to Nicaragua. He doesn’t risk going back to the village he lived in for three years, but he does stay in the country longer than any of the other countries, until he “hulks out” – as the media is taken to calling it – and is chased out of the country by the American Military, with Betty’s father leading the charge.

Every step he takes feels like chasing freedom, but with every mile he covers he feels more like prey.

Bruce finally achieves temporary peace in Rio de Janeiro. He gets a job and begins working earnestly to find a way to reverse the effects of the gamma radiation and get rid of the Hulk once and for all. He finds countless short-term solutions and makes the discovery that his heartbeat and stress levels are what control the Hulk.

He learns a lot about Hulk while he’s living in Rio. He learns that the Hulk is like a child – capable of intense emotion but with no real sense of how to deal with it. He also learns that the Hulk is smarter than Bruce originally gave him credit for, and that, in a weird way, he’s protective of Bruce.

He finally returns to the states when he receives a message from Betty saying that she needs his help with a project. He knows she wasn't the one to send the SOS. He goes anyway.

Like he expected, there's an ambush set up for him when he returns to Culver University. Hulk doesn't appreciate that very much. He saves Betty from her murderous, obsessive dad and his psychotic war partner and he runs again. Holds Betty while she cries. She found her soulmate, she tells him. She wants to go home. Bruce promises he’ll get her there.

After one final stand off between General Ross and Blonsky, Hulk succeeds in getting Betty back into the arms of her girlfriend, and then the doctor and his alter ego flee the country.

Bruce considers returning to Nicaragua, but instead dismisses the idea. He heads instead to West Bengal, Calcutta, where poverty and disease rates are high.

He’s there for half a year when he receives a letter from an organization called SHIELD, telling him that the lawyers of Stark Industries teamed up with them to disprove all rights the American government claimed to have over Bruce, and that his actions have been verified and he is no longer a fugitive. He’s allowed to go back whenever he wants.

The relief Bruce feels is crushing, but he doesn’t leave. He has sins to atone for – lives were lost in those initial days of Hulk’s rampages. Bruce tries to make them up by saving as many people as he can in the disease-ridden towns.

(He won’t voice it, he never will, but Bruce is still holding onto that inexplicable idea that he needs to be in a place like this, that if he doesn’t spend his life saving these people’s lives he will never find the people that share his marks.)

As it happens, Bruce does meet his first soulmate in Calcutta, but it’s not how he expected.

_“Who are you?”_

_“Natasha Romanov.”_

_"Are you here to kill me, Ms. Romanov?_ ”

She pulls a gun on him, but she isn't there to kill him. She’s there because she wants him to save the world. Not that she says as much, but that’s what she’s asking. SHIELD needs him to trace something called the 'Tesseract.'

Bruce doesn’t understand why it feels like Hulk is humming, why the other guy seems to want him to go with this strange, dangerous woman. He doesn’t understand why he himself wants to go with her – and he really does – so Bruce decides for the second time in his life to go with his gut instinct.

After all, the first time he did it landed him with a green monster that later became his best friend. Who knows what will happen this time?


	4. With a Clap of Thunder

Thor was born to be a king, in every way. This is assured from the beginning, not in just his heritage but in the gifts the gods have bestowed upon him – seven marks. It is a mark of prestige, goodness, and worthiness to wear more than two marks on Asgard, and though his are rather inanimate, Thor takes pride in them. He vows to protect those who share his marks.

Though his intentions were pure – his wish was only to right his kingdom and save his father while giving his future soulmates a partner to be proud of – Thor realizes that not only being a prince and a god but having the nebulous gift of seven soulmates had gone to his head. He was, in those times, as shallow as Loki often accused him.

Though when he meets the lovely Lady Jane – not one of his seven, to his disappointment – and learns of the Midgardians’ struggles, Thor does begin to realize what makes true worthiness, and it is not circumstances of birth.

His sacrifice for the Lady Sif and the Warriors Three let him once again wield Mjolnir, but with his new knowledge, Thor confides within himself that he did not know what it meant to be king until he watched his brother – and Loki was his brother, even if they did not share ancestry – fall into the void.

When Thor is reunited with his wayward brother, it does not go how he had hoped.

He takes Loki from the flying metal contraption – Quinjet, as the Midgardians call it – and intends to redirect the mislead trickster, but he is interrupted by the Captain of the Americas and the Man of Iron.

They fight, and though both opponents prove them worthy in the battlefield, Thor does not quite trust them until their suits have been removed.

He thinks Avengers is a good name for them, he contemplates when they are finally gathered in a temporary truce. He thinks that they are something worth fighting for.

It is an honor to stand amongst Earth’s Mightiest Heroes – and though Thor is grouped with them, he is different. He was born with no choice but to be great (he had to learn to be good), but these companions of his had the abilities of legends and myths thrown upon them and had to learn how to use them. But then again, perhaps the good Anthony is an exception as well. It seems he is a king among these mortals – for sure his face is plastered on papers and large signs in the sky, and his money could buy him a throne worthy of even Odin. He would’ve been great no matter his choices. But his choice was to build a metal suit of gold and that is what ascends him.

The good doctor is taken by the green monster, and Lady Natasha is nearly killed. The Man of Iron and the Captain of America fight, words sharper than barbed wire and flung at each other like harpoons. The green man falls from the flying base in the sky, and the unassuming Coulson is killed. Thor swallows his shame and falls to Earth, trapped and alone.

They fight their way back to each other in the city of dreams and are reunited once more – this time with the presence of the archer, Clinton. Thor does not miss the way Lady Natasha looks at him. He does not miss the way the archer looks back.

Their battle is not over yet, and Thor is not granted the time to mull over this epiphany. His brother, in some juvenile and futile fight, releases the Chitauri on New York, the shining city. The hoards fly through the portal in the sky and attack the unsuspecting citizens. They call for an evacuation as Thor and his team fights to the best of their coalesced abilities to save the city.

Despite their efforts, the dispensable fighters of Loki’s army do not hesitate in their brutal attack. The entire operation does not feel like the work of his brother. Thor begins to arrive at the conclusion that his brother has amalgamated with a partner of some sort in this plan – the son of Laufey rarely chooses to leave the shadows, preferring to concoct his schemes anonymously. That is what the silver-tongued prince does best.

Though Thor begins to believe this, he has not the means at the time to act accordingly and find the other perpetrator. The main interest in this fight is currently shutting the portal spewing these faceless creatures into the city.

Lady Natasha is about to do so when the Man of Iron’s command to hold the portal open for the time comes through the mystical communicating device Thor was given to place within his ear. The Midgardian Prince informs them that a missile has been set on course for the city, and, if it should arrive, would surely decimate all life within it. More than twenty thousand lives. Thor feels sick to his stomach at the thought that this is an acceptable course of action to the leaders of Earth.

He does not realize Anthony’s intent until he sees the strike of lean machine curving across the sky, the aforementioned missile scratching across the smooth metal of his design, headed for the hostile gateway leading thousands and millions of light-years away, to a corner of space humans are not supposed to see for hundreds of generations more.

“You know that’s a one-way trip?” he hears the good Captain bark into the communicators, but Thor’s eyes are fixed on the Man of Iron as he flies ever closer to his destruction. The Man of Iron does not respond to the Captain, but they all hear as he attempts to call someone unfamiliar to Thor. A Miss Potts. She does not pick up. Thor feels a wave of sorrow cross over him along with a sudden desperation. The very least that Anthony deserves, he thinks, is to have his last request fulfilled.

Red and gold disappear into a vortex, carrying the Man of Iron into the depths of space. Seconds later the Chitauri drop, the suits they’re wearing to protect them from Earth’s atmosphere failing. Brother Stark had succeeded, then.

Lady Natasha closes the portal.

Thor feels a sharp pain in his chest, strong enough that he lurches forward slightly, one hand coming up to grip his chest plate.

The pain disappears as quickly as it came and but Thor does not have time to dwell on the strange circumstances, as he sees the brave Man of Iron exit from the vortex a moment before it closes and once again separates the two dimensions.

Brave Anthony falls back towards their city and Thor smiles, secure in the knowledge that all has been righted and they all live. But he keeps falling.

“He’s not slowing down,” he unnecessarily informs the Captain, and begins to swing his hammer because he will _not_ allow the man to die, even here on his Earthly home, not after he’d saved all their lives and millions of others. That is unacceptable.

Before he can launch himself towards his falling ally, a blur of vicious green muscle tears across the sky, halting the fall of the metal man.

Thor smiles again, even as the Hulk rips through another building to carefully lower the Man of Iron to the ground and to safety. If ever there was proof that the Hulk did indeed have emotions relating to those ‘puny humans’ in this world, here it was.

Hulk placed the armor on the broken concrete, metal clanking heavily, no longer full of the life and personality that Anthony gifted it. Hulk ripped off the faceplate and there he lay, prone and silent, face pale.

Thor felt another stab of cold ice pierce his chest and the smile washed off his face. Anthony had sacrificed himself for them without a thought. He had died in a galaxy no human had ever laid eyes on, millions of light-years from his home. He had died alone.

Thor began to sink to one knee, a speech of valor already forming in his mind for his fallen teammate, when the green behemoth who had stopped Anthony’s violent descent let out a roar of anger, filled with a refusal to accept.

Anthony woke up with a gasp, and started spluttering out various exclamations, but Thor didn’t really hear any of it, to overcome with a sudden shattering relief to do anything other than smile at the genius.

“We should get shawarma,” the Man of Iron finalizes, the tension draining from his muscles as he relaxes in his suit. “Never tried it.”

Thor makes sure not to think about how close he was to never receiving the opportunity to.

As soon as Loki is in stable custody, it’s him that earnestly drags his newfound teammates to the little restaurant Anthony mentioned, despite their exhaustion. It’s worth it when he sees Tony smile and the rest of these strange Midgardians relax.


	5. Red and White, and Black and Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longer than the others because I had to get through a lot of time, but I hope you like it!

Things were different in the forties. People made choices and decisions based off of societal ideals and not off of personal morals. There was a certain type of code that you had to follow, and if you didn’t, people would get unexplainably mad.

Steve had never been overly concerned about the rules. Neither had Bucky.

The idea of gay couples marrying back then wasn’t even a fairytale yet. By the time Steve was ten, three separate couples in his neighborhood had either been chased out or killed for their identity. But then Mr. and Mr. Jackson had been living upstairs for forty years and no one bothered them. As a child, Steve didn’t understand.

As an adult, Steve still didn’t understand, but he knew the reasoning people used behind it.

Homosexuality was a sin, it was a disease of the brain, according to the people Steve questioned about the phenomenon. But soulmarks were a gift from God. So if your soulmarks paired you with someone of your gender, then they were just meant to be your best friend. The kind of friend you lived with all your life.

At first, Steve was astounded. It amazed him the extent people went to just to rationalize things they didn’t like. The Jacksons were some of the happiest people Steve knew, and they didn’t act like just best friends.

They acted more like Steve acted when he was with Bucky.

Bucky was his first, in every sense. First friend, first boyfriend, first lover, first soulmate. At the time, Steve didn’t know there would be more. He had never heard of anything like that.

Despite it being socially acceptable, men who’s soulmarks were shared with boys weren’t normally allowed in the military, but by the time the second Great War came to America, people decided there were more concerning issues.

Steve tried, again and again. He registered so many times, under so many names. It wasn’t the first law he’d broken, but it was certainly most serious.

And then Bucky left.

“I’ll be back,” he whispered, holding Steve tightly to his chest. “I promise you, I _will_ come back.”

Steve had just nodded and cried, but of course that wasn’t the end of it. Not for him. Fate seemed to be on his side, at least for this one night. Because their last date, the day before Bucky would be leaving the states, that was the night Steve met Dr. Erskine.

Everything changed overnight.

Steve went to the war himself, met Peggy – a great braud, but history was wrong about their relationship – and he learned about the super-soldier serum. He trained, used his brain to make up for his lack of muscles, and somehow won the favor of whom Steve considered the smartest man in the world.

When he was being led through the underground base, he wasn’t thinking about how he might not live through the afternoon. He wasn’t thinking about how he was about to meet Howard Stark – the second smartest man in the world, and probably the richest. He wasn’t thinking about that dance he never got (soulmarks or not, men in their society were _not_ allowed to dance in public, and most people in their neighborhood were too poor to own a radio, much less a record player.)

He was thinking that if he died here, Bucky – somewhere out in the world – would only know because of a cold feeling, and when he’d look, the red, white and blue circle on his side would be grey.

Steve was sure Bucky would find some way to bring him back to life if he did die, but that wasn’t very consoling as Steve knew the second life would only last as long as it took for Bucky to personally murder him.

Steve didn’t die – which was a relief. And then Dr. Erskine was shot, and the serum destroyed, and that – that was heartbreak. Steve, who had never had a father, finally had someone to look up to, and he was gone before this new, second life even began.

Steve didn’t have time to mourn, because immediately after he was given a choice; stay and do nothing, but experimented on until they figured out how to recreate the chemicals in his blood, or sell war bonds. At first, it was a no brainer. But several months of being nothing more than a dancing circus monkey – mindlessly entertaining the people rich enough to pay their way out of the draft – Steve was beginning to feel like everything Dr. Erskine has done for him was for not.

And then Bucky went missing.

(Yet another overnight change.)

Steve rescued him, with the help of an uncomfortably innuendo-spouting Howard Stark, and a skeptical but proud Peggy. The Howling Commandos were formed under the oddest circumstances, but that night the _real_ Captain America was born. The world’s first superhero.

None of that mattered of course – the only thing Steve cared about was Bucky, safe in his arms. (And wasn’t it weird that now Steve had several inches on the other?)

Facility by facility, they moved across Europe, striking down Hydra strains wherever they reared their ugly heads. There was always another battle to fight, but that was okay, because they _were_ making a difference, and Steve was so proud to be working side-by-side with these incredible men, so humbled that he was entrusted to lead them.

And then there’s The Mission. And The Train. And suddenly Bucky’s Gone.

Barely any time passes between then and Steve crashing a plane into the Arctic, and honestly, he’d assumed that in this war, it would be someone else to take his life, not himself. (And he won’t admit this to anyone – not now, not ever – but there’s something so completely relieving about not… existing. For seventy years, there’s just peace and quiet, and Steve doesn’t have to think, and sometimes, he misses.)

When he wakes up, the world has revolutionized and he learns that nowadays same-sex soulmarks are accepted as signs of love, not just friendship. (He wishes Bucky was here to see.)

Of course, that’s not that only thing that’s different.

Bucky’s mark is still there – not grey like it should’ve been after his death, but Howard had explained to him, softer and gentler than Steve had ever seen the man, that it was an affect the super-soldier serum had on his body, and that Bucky was indeed, dead. But now, it’s not the only one.

The SHIELD doctors and Fury are the only ones who know about them, and they are sworn to complete secrecy with threat of never seeing the sun again if they reveal the secrets.

Having more than three soulmarks has only ever happened on two other recorded instances, and Fury won’t tell him who the others are. He’s the only one who’s had the marks documented. Fury asks if he wants to know who any of his soulmates are. Steve says no. Not yet. He can barely stand to look at them now, and he refuses to think about what they mean.

Steve spends his days training and trying to forget the faces of everyone he left behind. Then the earth is attacked by an alien, he meets Howard Stark’s insufferable son as well as a group of s slightly more sufferable superheroes, they defend New York against a different race of aliens, Howard’s son nearly dies and Steve begins to think maybe he wasn’t really that bad, Tony ends up not dying, and they all move into his not-as-ugly-as-Steve-called-it skyscraper in New York.

All this happens over the course of weeks, if not months, but to Steve it feels like a whirlpool dragging him down, spinning him around and moving so quickly it’s like he’s transported to a different country every time he blinks.

Steve feels like a bad team leader when he doesn’t realize that Clint and Natasha are a couple until they start a relationship with Bruce. It completely throws him at first to see three people living together like that, especially when he sees Bruce and Clint kissing. Luckily for him, the three see his inner turmoil and they all sit down and have a long conversation about the ways society has advanced in terms of acceptance sine the forties.

Steve spends the entire conversation thinking that if he and Bucky had been born seventy years later than they were, they’d probably be married by now.

~~He misses him.~~

They’re talking having a conversation about soulmarks when everything changes again. Thor is telling them about Asgardian marks – how when he was a kid, he used to worry that his soulmates were dead, because he never felt his marks come alive with energy like most from his planet did. Bruce asks to see the god’s mark, maybe run some tests about the similarities and differences of Asgards and humans. Thor eagerly agrees, but Steve isn't expecting him to stand up and drop trou in the middle of the kitchen.

He’s not thinking about that for long ask his eyes latch onto the Norse’s mark. It feels like a lightning bolt hits him and before he can even think he’s standing up too, pulling his pants down – and he will _never_ stop being mortified that he did that in the presence of a lady – and showing the same mark on his thigh.

It takes him a moment to register that Clint has also thrown off his pants, and he watches with saucer-like eyes and Bruce and Natasha follow suit.

Shorts come off next until the five of them are standing naked in the kitchen, all the marks not covered by make-up shown and bared.

 _They have Bucky’s mark too,_ Steve realizes belatedly, feeling like he might pass out. _They have Bucky’s mark and it isn't faded._

They have sex, and then Steve cries because he’s never had sex with anyone but Bucky, and they all hold him and comfort him, and then they have sex again. In the kitchen and the adjoining living room. Another thing for Steve to be mortified about.

(He doesn’t like to admit it, but he doesn’t realize Tony isn't there until dinnertime of the second day, when he’s finally getting dressed again. He doesn’t like what that means.)

They spend about a month in blissful pleasure, ignoring for the most part the two marks that remain unaccounted for because it’s easier that way. When they are able to think and have conversations without the interference of sex, Steve tells them he needs to go to Washington DC. He needs to know why Bucky’s mark is still there.

He doesn’t get the pitying looks he’s expecting, just an offer from Natasha to go with him. He agrees. The others stay back to watch over New York.

He and Natasha end up getting sidetracked by Hydra and Steve learns about the Winter Soldier. He ends up fighting with the ghost story on a bridge, and Hydra is much bigger than he presumed, and Nick Fury dies (though not really) but none of that is on Steve’s mind, can't possibly what he’s thinking about right now, because….

_“Who the hell is Bucky?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is Bucky.


	6. Cold Metal and Warm Embraces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been like two weeks since I've updated, but this is a pretty long chapter so I hope it's worth it!  
> (Sorry for any typos, I promised this chapter would be up by today.)

The Winter Solider did not have any form of understanding regarding soulmarks. He did not have a concept of true love and the world ‘soulmate’ was not in his vocabulary. What he did know was that there were pictures – marks on his skin, and every now and then a new one would appear. Sometimes he almost felt like the mark on his thigh was moving with energy. Sometimes when his head was aching and his fingers were shaking, the mark on his hip would calm him. Sometimes he’d be sitting in the chair, and he’d crane his head ever so slightly to see the circle and stars on his side and an image – a _memory_ – of blue eyes and blond hair would come to mind.

The Winter Soldier does not understand why sometimes he will catch himself staring intently at the blank metal of his shoulder, and he does not understand the inane surety that something is missing.

When Bucky returns, he is – to say the least – shocked.

Steve came to DC with an oddly familiar redhead and – after they took down a corrupted government organization, exposing its rotten core – Steve and the redhead managed to find him again. Steve then told the Solider a story, a story about two young boys who didn’t have enough common sense for their own safety who grew up in Brooklyn and, despite everything working against them, were happy. He goes on to say that those same two boys grew up and their country broke out in war. He says the boys went off to war, and both of them died. And both of them came back.

Seven soulmarks, Bucky learns. For him, only six – the replacement Hydra made him after the loss of his arm does not showcase the red star both the redhead and Steve have. But seven soulmarks belong to him. One is Steve’s – the shield – and the spider on the back of his neck that the Soldier had been hard pressed to find was Natasha’s, the redhead’s. Three others belong to a man, a god, and a sometimes-oddly-cuddly-monster who live in a shining tower in the city of dreams. The last mark belongs to the person they are still searching for.

It is the first fairytale Bucky has heard in seventy years.

Steve tells him they need to hide the mark on his chest. Bucky doesn’t want to, tells Steve as much, but it’s a necessity. On the chance their soulmate is a civilian, on the chance one of their opponents sees the mark and tracks them down, they could be killed. That’s all it took to convince Bucky.

Steve did not do the Tower justice,             Bucky decides when they arrive in a dark van with tinted windows. It was built by the son of the man who made the almost-flying car that was revealed on their last date together. Bucky didn’t like that man much, and it’s very apparent that cars are still firmly on the ground. But Bucky won’t judge anyone on the sins of their father, and he thinks that whoever created something as beautiful as this deserves, at the very least, to stand on their own.

His name is Tony, Bucky learns. He’s the smartest man who ever lived, Bucky learns. And Bucky learns that he is Iron Man.

When Steve brings Bucky to Tony’s workshop for the first time, Bucky has the quick thought that maybe, possibly, even after everything he’s been through… it might’ve been worth it now that he has the chance to see _this_.

The workshop is better, brighter, more beautiful than any future Bucky could ever have imagined. It’s bathed in shining blue light that might be artificial but has no lack in beauty. Loud, grinding, wailing music is blasting through the space, assaulting Bucky’s super-human ears and making the floor pulse with the beat. He loves it. Metal and machines and screen and floating, bluish… things cover every surface in the packed space and Bucky knows – he knows with the same intensity that he knew he loved Steve the first time he saw him – that in this space, beautiful things are created. Incredible things. Things Bucky could never imagine.

In the center of the place, clad in beat up jeans and an oil stained t-shirt and wearing a metal helmet, stands a man. His hips sway with the music but every muscle in his body is focused, primed. He’s holding a blowtorch of some sort, and it sends sparks and pieces of burning metal cascading around his head – a halo that would make any blacksmith proud.

When he turns and lifts the metal mask, Bucky realizes the seraphic ideals do not end with halos for this man.

His features aren’t angelic in the way Steve is, with pale skin and soft blond hair and blue eyes. Truthfully, the smirk on his pink lips and the mischievous spark in his eyes are probably more related to imagery of the devil.

But Bucky can't see this man as a demon.

One glance in this layer of innovation shows an undeniable ability for _creation_. This man dreams of things nobody else has ever conceived, and then he comes here and he turns them into reality. That is as close to godliness as a human can come, in Bucky’s opinion.

“JARVIS, lower the music!” the inventor calls out, and instantly the pounding base and wailing guitar dies away. The man struts forward and extends a hand to Bucky. “Sup, mate, you must be the new roomie,” he grins, grabbing Bucky’s organic hand before Bucky has the chance to shake this man’s hand of his own accord.

Before Bucky can react, the inventor is using his organic hand to pull him closer, and then there are agile fingers and calloused palms skimming up and down the metal limb Hydra created.

Bucky shudders and Steve opens his mouth to call the man off, but the other is already speaking. “Beautiful, yet disgusting,” he declares, letting go. Bucky’s arm drops to his side and he’s shocked at this man’s blatancy. Everyone has been tiptoeing around him, even his new soulmates. The inventor, it seems, does not have such reservations.

He’s strides deeper into the lab, calling out, “JAVRIS, new schematics – scan the arm and bring me a blueprint of the design. I’ll figure out what I need to keep and what I need to trash. We’re building it from the ground up. Leave Helen a message – I’ll need her expertise on how we get this baby synced up to dear Bucky’s brain – Set up the schedule, I want the shell designed by Friday, and all the wiring handled by Monday-”

“Tony,” Steve interrupted, glancing worriedly at Bucky, “can I talk to you for a minute?”

So this man is Tony then, but how could he not be? The Tower spoke to Bucky of innovation and beauty and power, and that seems to be this man’s trademark.

“Walk and talk, Stevie my good mate,” Tony said, waving his hands through the air. A luminescent blue screen appeared in front of his face and Bucky’s eyes widened.

“Tony, please, three minutes,” Steve pleads, but behind the slight worry, Bucky can see the fond smile tugging on his friend’s lips. He knows instinctively that Tony and this space have been the muse for much of Steve’s artwork. Bucky thinks if he had any sort of creative ability, he wouldn’t be able to resist an attempt to capture this place either.

Tony hums thoughtfully before nodding decisively and spinning around. “Three minutes,” he agrees. “JARVIS, set the timer,” he adds with a sassy grin.

Bucky will ask Steve later what a ‘JARVIS’ is, but for now he is too involved in the situation playing out around him.

“This is Bucky, as I'm sure you’ve figured out,” Steve begins, words rushed in a way that makes Bucky think maybe the three minute timer was not a joke. “Bucky, this is Tony Stark, he owns the Tower and funds the Avengers.”

“And will be building you a replacement for the monstrosity Hydra gave you,” Tony tacks on, and Bucky sees Steve wince. “If you want to see my credentials, Steve or JARVIS can show you them on the tablet.”

Bucky doesn’t ask to see the credentials. A week and a half later when Tony calls Bucky down to his lab with the first prototype of the arm lying on a cleared surface, Bucky fights to hold back tears. A month after he gets to the Tower and Tony has finished the arm, Bucky does cry.

In that time, he gets to know the four others. The redhead, Natasha, is fierce, protective, and stands like a sculpture made of broken glass. The archer, Clint, climbs shelves with the dexterity of a monkey and smiles and smirks more than anyone else Bucky has ever met. Bucky doesn’t really see how sweet, kind, intelligent Bruce could possibly be a rage monster, but he nevertheless respects the man for keeping control over his anger when the stakes are so high. The big one’s name is Thor – _the_ Thor _,_ and that actually might be the strangest thing about the future – and his muscles are bigger than Bucky’s head, but he likes to cuddle more than any kitten. Steve hasn’t changed much, is still the same lovable oaf he always was, but he might be a little happier now. That, above everything else, makes Bucky happier than he has ever been.

It isn’t hard to fall in love with them. It’s incredibly easy, really, and the first time Bucky wakes up in their bed, surrounded by warmth and skin and love, he comes to the realization that this is the world he’d been fighting for when he signed up as a soldier. This world where he can love and be loved and where things don’t have to be more complicated than that.

Except they are. It’s much more complicated than that.

Much as he adores them – each of them, differently, separately, but equally – Bucky doesn’t find himself falling into the same dopey, hormone driven state of relaxation the rest are dripping into.

(JARVIS, who is apparently an alternate intelligence created by Tony, helpfully supplies that this stage in a relationship is called the ‘honeymoon phase.’)

Maybe it’s because Hydra messed him up too harshly for him to ever just be lax with love and hope for the future. Maybe it’s because the last he remembers as Bucky he had already been in a relationship with Steve for years. Maybe his particular brand of the serum is pumping him too full of energy for him to fully relax. (Maybe it’s because he can't stop thinking about the mark on his chest, and can't get over the feeling that something is missing – but he won’t tell the others that particular worry.)

Instead of joining in on weekend long cuddle fests, more often than not, Bucky finds himself in Tony’s workshop.

As children, when Steve was too sick to leave his apartment or when one of them had managed to seriously injure themselves enough to be bedridden, he and Steve used to read books to one another. Sometimes the blonde would be curled up on his lap while Bucky read T.H. White and his story of knights and wizards. Sometimes Bucky would build a short of sheets and pillows in his living room and he and his three younger sisters would cuddle up while Steve read to them about Mowgli, a boy raised in the jungle by wolves. On stormy nights, curled up together, they’d trade back and forth stories from the Brothers Grimm. When they got older and their tastes more expanded, they moved onto _The Great Gatsby,_ then _A Tale of Two Cities_ , and during one winter season that was particularly hard on Steve, they managed to work their way through the entirety of _Les Misérables._

They read shelves of books – anything Sarah could get for them – and Bucky tour through libraries for anything Steve might like on his sick days.

But through all those years and all those stories, one thing remained constant; Bucky’s all-time favorite was Jules Verne.

Bucky read everything the man ever wrote, would’ve read his tax returns if he got the chance. He soaked up all of the marvelous, impossible ideas with the eagerness of a child on the first day of summer. Nothing was more astounding to Bucky than the ideas Jules Verne presented to the world.

When he was rescued and the Winter Soldier dismissed, Bucky was shocked to discover a world where his bedtime stories were reality. Submarines and rockets and people on the moon were all _real_ , all came true after the wonderings of a man a hundred years before.

Tony, Bucky thinks, is what Jules Verne would have been if the man had been capable of transforming his thoughts into reality.

Phones and computers in your pocket, engines that could answer any question you had, robots with all the dexterity of a human being, and a soul with emotion and ideas formed from several thousand lines of code – Tony had _created_ all these things, and he put Jules Verne to shame with them. And Bucky had always loved futurists.

Really, it’s no surprise that he fell in love with Tony too.

It wasn’t the same as it was with the others – with the others, he was allowed, he was _supposed_ to love them, so when he did, it was simple to accept. But Tony – he doesn’t even realize it until the night after Pepper’s wedding.

Steve had quietly explained that Tony and Pepper used to date but they had broken up when Tony had met Pepper’s soulmate and informed her. Tony was to be Pepper’s ‘man-of-honor’ as well as giving her away. Bucky said he thought that was pretty brave of Tony. Steve agreed, and the look in his eyes was sad.

Steve’s sadness and Bucky’s distraction had kept them, and by proxy the others, up that night, and they’d chosen to watch a movie. (They had an excuse for being up, but they didn’t have an excuse for being on Tony’s floor. Bucky ignored the fact.) When Tony had stumbled in Bucky had intended on inviting him to finish the movie with them – though they’ve been watching it in mute, each lost in their thoughts – but Tony doesn’t see them. He’s mouthing words Bucky can't read, leaning against the door, head tilted back, bathed in the electric light of the TV that almost matches the arc reactor. He’s the picture of beautiful sorrow just then.

When Tony finally speaks, it’s in a language Bucky doesn’t recognize – _“Dio mi liberi dai miei peccati”_ – and then he opens his eyes. Bucky sees a streak of terror run through the deep brown eyes, followed by an emotion that he can't define. And then the mask goes up.

It feels like something dies in Bucky’s chest every time Tony’s face warps like this – and it does so frequently – but on this occasion, it somehow strikes deeper. Something is very, very wrong with Tony Stark.

He jokes like he always does, plays it light and Clint tries to play back but it falls flat like a wrong note in the middle of a symphony, jarring and unpleasant.

Tony stands to leave claiming exhaustion and when he turns, and Bucky can't stop the words.

“You can stay, if you want.”

Tony freezes, his back to them, and everyone in the room stops breathing. Bucky realizes in this moment that all he wants in the world right now, is for Tony to stay. He prays, like he assumes Tony was, that he will.

When Tony leaves – without a word, without a backward glance – Bucky’s heart breaks, and that’s how he figures out that he’s in love.

He refuses to let it end here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was kinda supposed to be the last chapter, but obviously, it's not. This chapter was getting too long and I wanted to end it here. I know how the story is going to end, but I don't quite know which perspective I want it to come from, so - if any of you have a preference as to who should tell the last chapter, please comment bellow! Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Also, if any of you don't know, Jules Verne was an author in the 1800's who predicted a lot of future inventions like spaceships, submarines, and skywriting.


	7. All the Pieces, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the Part 1. This was supposed to be the last chapter, but I'd already exceeded the length I wanted, and decided it was best to split this up into two chapters, because I didn't know how long the final product would be if i didn't, and I don't know how long it will take me to write the last part, though it should be up fairly soon.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment with suggestions on the last chapter, they really helped me. I put a lot of consideration into writing this last part, and eventually decided I would revisit everyone's perspective. This chapter is Clint, Natasha, and Bruce.

**Clint**

Two days before Tony is scheduled to arrive back from Japan after the night of Pepper’s wedding, Clint disappears into his vents. He hasn’t been up there in a while – after all, he has five lovers to keep him occupied – but it still feels spacious and clean. He knows Tony made the vents with him in mind, and now that Tony’s left the Tower after that – strange, disastrous, confusing, heart-wrenching, game-changing – night, when Bucky asked him to stay ~~and Tony didn’t~~ Clint can't stop thinking about all these things Tony’s done for them, without ever once asking for anything in return. (Except maybe company, but Clint doesn’t think too hard on that, because he’s suddenly realizing all the times they’ve ignored Tony in favor of lavishing attention on one another.)

There’s the obvious one – he gave them all a _home_ , and by extension, a _family_. Truly, Tony is the reason the six of them found one another, and the reason they got together as fast as they did. And he designed each of them floors – beautiful, tailored, souped-up floors that they each adored – entirely for themselves. He doesn’t even complain now that they’ve all migrated into the top two of their floors, the other ones pretty much vacated. Never paused when they asked him to do renovation after renovation to make the two floors suit all of their needs.

Then there’s the point Natasha made to him the other day – it was Tony’s team searching the arctic that found Steve. Steve. They have _Steve_ – the world has Captain America – because Tony never gave up searching for the war hero.

Tony was the one who once and for all freed Bruce from the grasping hands of General Ross. The American Military was nothing when faced with a determined Stark and a veritable army of lawyers.

Tony was the first to get through to Bucky when he first came back to the Tower. He didn’t walk on eggshells like the rest of them – no, he bounded towards the ex-Hydra assassin as though freely stomping on glass. Bucky came out of his shell and became part of the new century because Tony insistently shoved him towards it, all under the guise of too-loud rock and roll music and shimmering blue holograms.

Clint slows down his unmapped movement above a grate and looks down. He’s somehow wound up on Tony’s floor, directly above the billionaire’s state-of-the-art and barely used kitchen.

Clint’s suddenly reminded of Tony’s happy groans and wide grin as he stuffed his face with Clint’s lemon meringue.

Without planning the action, Clint drops down from the vent and begins to move around the kitchen, hoping that it’s got all the ingredients for the baked good.

No, he can't ever pay Tony back for the millions of dollars he’s spent on them, and he can't make up for everything he’s done for them as individuals. He can't even begin to do that. But he can bake pie.

It’s as good a place to start as any.

  **Natasha**

If anyone asked, Natasha would claim she was only on Tony’s floor because she was doing a security sweep. They would believe her – Natasha was both an incredible liar and paranoid enough that the story was easy to accept – and her underlying intentions would remain hers.

But she isn't up here to check Tony’s defenses.

Clint has started baking lemon meringue pies every week, and while he does enjoy the pie a fair amount, as do the rest of them, Natasha knows there is some incentive behind the scheduled baking.

Clint won’t look her in the eye when she asks him about it, but Natasha does not dismiss the fact that the pies started appearing on the common floor when Tony arrived back at the Tower for the first time since the night of Pepper’s wedding.

Italian happens to be one of the languages she does not speak, but she can recognize intent in just about any dialect, and it was a prayer Tony was mumbling that night. Tony is perhaps the least religious person living in their Tower.

While the encounter is odd, it is not the interaction with Tony that has been weighing heavily on her as of late. Every time she or one of her partners is getting dressed, Natasha’s eyes will linger on their marks – particularly at the blue circle on their chest – and she will think about that day in the park. Bucky was right to question Tony, she thinks, but he did not go about it cleverly. Still, Tony’s response to her question had unnerved her.

 _Gone_ , he’d said, and Natasha had never before been so confused by the Stark, and she firmly believed Tony was one of the most unexplainable people on the planet.

Part of her believed him – the emotion of losing a loved one had certainly been brimming in his eyes – but it was the phrasing that threw her. She did not know what to make of it, and whenever Natasha didn’t understand something it made her very, very antsy.

She is musing over the events of that day and the possible meanings Tony could have insinuated by his phrase when a very tired, stumbling genius trips his way into the kitchen.

Natasha freezes, thinking she will be reprimanded and questioned for her presence in Tony’s personal space, but Tony’s bleary and red-rimmed eyes barely glance at her before he’s tripping over his own feet in his own haste towards the coffee maker.

Natasha watches him scrabble to make the caffeinated drink for a moment. She only interrupts when Tony’s hand, groping blindly over the counter top in search of his favorite blend, nearly grabs a six-inch kitchen knife.

Natasha is at the exhausted genius’ side in a second, fingers gripping his wrist as she pulls him away and firmly pushes him to sit in one of the chairs while she goes on to make his coffee.

Natasha sits the mug in front of Tony when it’s finished and cooled to an appropriate temperature, and Tony takes three seconds flat to swallow the entire mug, before he’s jumping up and grabbing the coffee pot, disappearing into the elevator with it clutched in his arms.

Natasha puts the knife away slowly and silently contemplates what would have happened if she had not been there to redirect the billionaire. Possibly the loss of several fingers.

Natasha decides perhaps it’s in everyone’s best interests if she keeps their resident inventor supplied with caffeine.

(She very studiously ignores the way her heart skipped a beat in terror when Tony nearly cut himself. She’s sure it isn't important.)

  **Bruce**

It’s Bruce’s turn to pick the movie for movie night, and he truly did not know what would come from his choice.

He picked Pixar’s _Inside Out_ because of the phenomenal ratings and because he found the metaphor for the human brain, and in particular children’s thought processes, to be very interesting. He was not expecting Tony’s reaction to the movie.

In all fairness, the genius had just finished a four-day working binge and a new project – one that was likely to make him millions once SI put it on the market – and Tony wasn’t exactly known for being particularly coherent after days without sleep.

Still, that did not excuse the genius literally sitting on the edge of his seat for the entire movie, wide eyes completely enraptured despite the murkiness sleep gave them.

(It also doesn’t explain the way Tony’s lips moved along to half of the lines in the movie, but Bruce gets the feeling that if any of them ever mention that to him, the most they will see of Tony for several weeks will be the blacked out glass of the workshop.)

He isn't the only one to notice – how could he be living with two super spies? – and the next movie night, when it’s Natasha’s turn and Tony is more awake, they watch WALL-E. Bruce, now knowing to pay attention, sees the awe and simple happiness in Tony’s eyes as the story progresses.

It is not a look Bruce has ever seen on Tony Stark, certainly not in decades of seeing him plastered on magazine covers and not even during these months living in Tony’s house and working side by side with the genius.

It makes him wonder what other looks Tony has but has never expressed.

So it is that Bruce initiates Friday and Wednesday team dinners. He’s beginning to think they’ve been neglecting spending time with a very important member of their team, and now that he’s looking, Tony seems worryingly thin.

Thor is the one to suggest team lunches – apparently it’s a very big tradition on Asgard, especially for warriors and during times of fighting. You eat breakfast with your family and close friends in a private affair, work hard in the first half of the day, and then eat lunch with your fellow colleagues or warriors as a moral boost. At night, everyone gets together and you feast to celebrate the day’s achievements.

Bruce and Thor get into a long discussion about tradition and the differences in Asgardian and Midgardian culture, and the end result are Mondays and Sundays as team lunch day. Clint insists they add a day for breakfast (or, well, brunch, because no way are they getting up earlier than nine on any given day of the week) as well, as the Avengers are probably the best family any of them has ever had. He is very particular to include Tony in his definition, and Bruce doesn’t think to question it. Recently, he too has had trouble separating his thoughts of Tony and his soulmates as well.

Tony’s expression is boggled when Steve gives him the new roster, but he goes along with little complaint – though he expresses his confusion loudly. After a few weeks, Bruce is pleased to see him gaining weight. In the healthy manner of course, the way that means Bruce would now have to get close to Tony if he wanted to count his ribs. It’s not much, but it’s progress.

That seems to be the way he defines a lot of things now, Bruce muses when he finds himself watching Tony’s reaction instead of the actual movie once again. Bruce smiles.

That’s definitely a statistic to be happy about.


	8. All the Pieces, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, I hope you enjoy!

**Thor**

As of late, on a few certain days, it becomes difficult for the Prince of Asgard to think of the Man of Iron and brother Tony as one in the same. Good Tony grinned and laughed at everything, and was tired and soft frequently. He worked too hard and slept and ate too little and made things that surpassed even some of Asgard’s technologies. Anthony Stark ruled the world with a gentle hand and without ever stepping out of the shadows. Sometimes Thor wondered it the man even knew how far his grasp held.

The Man of Iron was as his name would suggest; he was brave, and fought hard, and he was endurance and strength and heavy hits. The Man of Iron was brute to Tony’s brains, the fire to Anthony’s water.

And both of them were impossible to grasp.

There are few that Thor has ever considering letting into his heart. Frigga, his dear mother, was the first. His brother when Loki came to them – even if he was a trickster and even if Thor did not always treat him justly, he would first and foremost always be Thor’s little brother. The Lady Sif and the Warriors Three managed to sneak in. Being a young and alone, with the expectations of an entire galaxy resting on your shoulders was not conductive to friendship making, but those four achieved status at Thor’s side, and he held them there proudly.

His soulmates were always a given – far before he knew them and even now, without knowledge of one of them, the seven held the thrones of his heart like the rulers of Olympus once had. Wherever they should trod, he would follow them. Whatever battle they are faced with, he would gladly fight for their profit.

This was expected though, especially on Asgard, where marks were said to be the kisses of ancient stars.

What is unexpected is the presence of Midgard’s brightest mortal.

Thor only comes to the realization of his heart’s opinions of Anthony one night while they are gathered around one of the man’s beautiful glass tables, and Tony begins to laugh at something Clinton had said.

His hazel eyes crinkle up at the edges and his teeth are blindingly white, and this is the smile that has never once graced the cover of any of the hundreds of magazines the man has been on.

It makes Thor’s heart flutter, and that has only happened for five other people in Thor’s centuries of existence.

It could mean trouble later on, but Thor chooses to ignore his possible impending doom and focuses on the musical sound of Tony’s happy laughter.

**Steve**

He can’t let it go. He tries so, so fucking hard, because for all Steve knows, this – asking for one more thing when he’s already drowning in fortune will be the tipping point. He has five beautiful, strong, perfect lovers. He lives in a skyscraper that reaches above the clouds. He cannot ask for anything more.

(But god, does he want to.)

Natasha knows. Bucky probably does. The rest of them might have it figured out. Steve, for all of his short-lived acting career, has never been a good actor.

He traces the mark in the center of his chest with one finger. It’s a habit he’s picked up recently and even though he detests doing it, he can't make himself stop.

Clint bakes Tony pies. Bruce always insistently checks up on Tony after missions. Thor seems to have dedicated a large portion of time to the effort of making Tony laugh. They’ve all taken up some occupation surrounding Tony, even Natasha and Bucky.

Steve isn't confronted until Bruce is swamped with work, Thor is visiting his home planet, Bucky is desperately trying to match Steve’s record of broken punching bags, and Clint is in Hawaii.

“I think Tony is our seventh mark,” Natasha declares without preamble, striding into the room Steve was reading a book in.

He drops the book in shock.

“Wh – Nat – what? He told us – he said he lost his soulmate,” Steve spluttered, going back to the heartbreaking words Tony had uttered weeks ago.

Natasha crosses her arms and raises one eyebrow. “I believe he was lying,” she says, like it’s obvious, like Steve should have known.

“He could be telling the truth,” Steve argues back, standing up because it’s the only way he can feel like he’s even vaguely on the same level as Natasha.

“You know he’s not,” Natasha says, and the look in her eyes tells Steve that she will not abide by this weird dance they’ve all been doing around Tony for months now any longer.

They argue, and Natasha tells Steve that she believes Tony had his marks – _their_ marks – burned off. Steve stops breathing for a full minute. He can't even _begin_ to fathom something like that. He doesn’t _want_ to. His only fall back is to object, so he does just that, until Natasha pulls the rug from under him.

“You love him, I know you do,” she says, eyes firmly fixed on his, and even with the super-soldier serum, it’s definitely not healthy for Steve to be going this long without breathing.

“The way he looks at us… you have to have seen.”

And Steve _has_ seen – seen the glances stolen from the corner’s of soft brown eyes, seen the longer stares when Tony’s phased out, seen the desperate daydreams shining on his face. But to acknowledge those looks would be to recognize that every time Tony looked to one of them, no one looked back.

“He’s just lonely,” Steve pushes weekly

“Of course he is,” Natasha snaps harshly, but Steve can see the emotion in her eyes, and the next words are softer. “Tony Stark has been lonely since the day he was born.”

Steve feels like the breath has been ripped from his lungs even as he stutters out his response. It’s what they’ve all been thinking about recently, what none of them wanted to admit.

“What-” Steve cuts himself off and swallows hard before completing the final thought. “What if he says no?”

Natasha’s eyes soften and she opens her mouth, likely to soothe him, but a sudden clatter from the ceiling makes them both freeze. For a second Steve thinks it’s Clint, but then he remember that he’s in Hawaii. A quick scramble through his thoughts of who could possibly be up there, and only one possible answer comes to mind.

When he meets Natasha’s worry-stricken eyes his theory is confirmed, and they both dash from the room. Still, through his cloud of panic, one thought takes prominence in his brain.

 _Is this how they finally get Tony_?

He wants it to be. God, he’s so tired of waiting. He’s terrified of how Tony react but – it’s still _Tony_. Steve would do a lot more to be with him than just possibly make a fool of himself.

But later, when their all curled up in bed with a passed out Tony in the middle, Steve will mourn that their get-together was a little less than ideal. He lets the idea go quickly though, and contents himself with wrapping his arms a little tighter around Tony and, peacefully, falls asleep.

**Bucky**

Clint is pissed when he comes home to his lovers cuddling with Tony in the bed, though not for the reasons Bucky would have assumed.

“Seriously?” he demands, storming into Tony’s bed and dropping his quiver on the ground. “You couldn’t have waited two days for me to get home and _then_ sleep with the resident genius?” He crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s just fucking inconsiderate, guys.”

They shush him viciously and gesture for him to climb up on Tony’s behemoth of a bed, and Natasha quietly explains what happened, and the reveal of Tony’s soulmarks.

Bucky expects the archer to be shocked, but Clint just nods silently and then bends down, very carefully brushing a loose lock of Tony’s hair out of his eyes, and presses a soft kiss to the genius’ forehead. Bucky has never seen Clint be so gentle with anyone other than his lovers.

Bucky’s surprised, but not too surprised, because it is, after all, how he’d felt for the past two days they’ve spent with Tony curled up between them like a child, looking so much younger in his sleep.

He gets the feeling that this brief interlude of peace won’t last for longer than Tony’s unconscious. After all, he did hide the fact that he had the other’s soulmates for months and months. There has to be a reason Tony did that. And they don’t have an explanation yet as to why Tony’s marks were burned off in the first place.

But right now, Tony is asleep, so there’s no use worrying over anything. And when he wakes up, they’ll give him time to recover before asking him anything.

After all, if Bucky has his way, they’ll have the rest of their lives to do everything else that needs to be done and for right now, he’s happy enough to curl up, and go to sleep, all six pieces of his soul – _finally_ – gathered around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I got a lot of comments asking for a chapter where Tony reveals the reason his marks were burned off to the team, and while that won't be part of this story, it will be a later installment in the series. I have a lot of plans for this series, but if there's anything in particular you would like to see, tell me in the comments below and I might make it part of the series ;)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading!


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